Extremely poor performance MBP battery

[EightBitFactory]

Hi Guys,

Wonder if anyone could shed any light on my issue. Just bought a new MBP 15" 2.2 i7 and am receiving extremely low battery life (1.5 hours approx) I'm running at just below 50% brightness and am using it for browsing, music (light use)

Now as far as i'm aware people are getting 4-6 hours from their MBP with lion, so im pretty sure somethings not right. And i wondered if there was anything i could do to resolve the issue without sending the MBP back to Apple. I know you can calibrate your battery but im unsure how to do this, or if it would help. I would imagine that the battery would be fresh, its not a refurb and i've had it literally only 4 days or so.

My concern is that i'll be using it to do 3D modelling on my commute to work (a long train journey) over the next month so i don't want a dead laptop before i've even get to the studio.

Apologies if this is a topic already covered and i've missed it, and thanks for your help/feedback.

David

 

[GGJstudios]

Wonder if anyone could shed any light on my issue. Just bought a new MBP 15" 2.2 i7 and am receiving extremely low battery life (1.5 hours approx) I'm running at just below 50% brightness and am using it for browsing, music (light use)

There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.

I know you can calibrate your battery but im unsure how to do this, or if it would help.

The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries.

i've had it literally only 4 days or so.

If a drive is constantly active or your CPU utilization is high (possibly with increased temps and fan speed) when you're not running any major apps, check to see if Spotlight is indexing by looking at the Menu Bar icon:

(not indexing)

(indexing) (pulsing dot)​

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Jpalessi]

cycle

if its brand new then i would cycles it some before you go taking action with apple. let it fully discharge and auto shut down before doing a full charge. do that a few times and see if it dont improve.

 

[NickZac]

Go to Activity Monitor and check what is using CPU tasks. If one process is hogging CPU output, then that is the culprit. You would also know as your computer will be running hotter if there is something draining a (correctly functioning) battery that quickly. I get more than that with a substantial amount of the CPU running and the screen at more than 50. If nothing is pushing the CPU very hard, I think your battery is defective in which Apple will obviously replace upon their inspection/evaluation. The MBP is a pretty good laptop on battery and that is way off.

 

[EightBitFactory]

Thank you all for your quick and useful responses, low and behold a java script web application (that i assumed had very low system demands) was completely destroying my cpu.

My batt. is now sitting at 43% and it estimates around 2hrs or so remaining which is in-line with what i've heard the batt. should last.

Im very impressed with the community's openness and willingness to help a newbie with something that is fairly trivial and probably very obvious, so big thanks to everyone here!

 

[mfuchs88]

Glad you got that figured out. I love seeing people come together to help one another. Despite the occasional debbie downer, Macrumors is overall a very helpful place and I probably spend a good 2-3 hours a day on here. I love it. Anyway, happy tangent over, congrats on fixing your issue.

 

[AshScache]

My girlfriend just got her first 13" MBP at christmastime and had a similar issue with her battery that resolved itself after about 10-12 charge cycles. The battery was lasting only an hour or so with "typical" use, and then after it got over the 10-12 cycles point, it shot up to 4-5 hours on a charge.

FWIW, I had no such experience with my 15" MBP when I bought it in October. However, I will note that I purchased mine through Apple refurbished while hers was brand new; maybe my Mac had enough "break in" that it had already gotten past this point? I'm not sure. Moral of this post is that, at least anecdotally, there does seem to be a "break in" period on new batteries.